Saturday, 8 January 2011

Trying Concept Sketches

After being inspired by Christopher Burdett's blog post, and his amazing monsters that he loves to create so much, I thought I would have a go at designing and creating my own monster. I decided to do the Wetcanvas Creature Feature, which this month is a mythical creature called an Eachy. An Eachy is described as a species of lake monster from Northern England and Scotland. It is typically a large humanoid being of gruesome and slimy appearance seen to occasionally emerge from the lake. It is described as a 13-foot-long (4.0 m), triple-humped, python-headed creature.

Following Christopher Burdett's method of using reference photos and concept sketches/thumbnails, I gathered many images of python's heads, hunchbacks (of notre dame), and even the odd hunchbacked gargoyle statue. I looked for 'humps' so I could look at camel humps. For future reference, make sure you add the word 'camel' to your search, or you get a lot of humping and no camels!!!

These are some of the suitable reference images I found...

I like these reference images, and I got a basic idea in my head of what I wanted my Eachy to look like. So I started sketching my first ever 'concept sketches'. I've never done concept sketches before, I've looked at some, (especially those in Art of Star Wars books), I've sketched fun cartoony images before, and drawn from reference images before. But how do you draw an imaginary creature, from reference images that obviously are not a photograph of the imaginary creature you're trying to make up? Well, I had a go, and embarrassed to say my drawings looked like a child's drawings! They looked awful to me! I shaded them in and went over the lines a bit, and they seem to have improved a little, but they're definitely not the best sketches in the world! I know concept sketches aren't meant to be the best art ever, just show the design of whatever it is you're designing. Which mine do, just about. I just hope I can make a better creature when I come to doing my final drawing. I really think I need help on using reference pictures to create imaginary creatures!

Here they are, I hope you don't find them too poorly drawn. Any help and advice anyone can offer would be gratefully appreciated!